Payless pays off for VP

Payless Shoe Source (Payless) has a presence in much of the Caribbean today, thanks in part to its new VP for Latin America and the Caribbean, Denise Bernard.

Bernard, who is from the Dominican Republic (DR), is the first woman of Hispanic and Caribbean descent to be appointed a VP at the international shoe and accessories retailer.

Her journey to retail executive actually began at a DR law firm, a story she shared with Business Day last Thursday on the sidelines of the formal opening of Payless' first super store in the English-speaking Caribbean, at Trincity Mall, Trincity.

"I've been with Payless now for 16 years and it's funny because I started (not) thinking that it was going to be long-term. I was working in the foreign investments department of a law firm in DR when Payless decided to open a store there. I started working with them, sorting out the entity and everything that needed to be done from a legal perspective and I got very involved with the company."

At the time, Payless didn't have a country manager for the DR, so they would ask Bernard to handle "a lot of things that would normally be done by a country manager."

In March 2002, about eight months after Payless first entered the DR market, Bernard accepted the company's offer to "come on board as part of their team" as district manager.

Smiling as she recalled her decision to take the leap, the 45-year-old said, "I thought it was a crazy idea because it represented leaving my career behind but after further thought, I decided I'm going to give it a try and I'm going to do this for about two years.

"Take a break from law, somewhat of a sabbatical and have some fun in retail but it turns out that with Payless and retail in general, there's never a dull day. So a year goes by as a week and ten years goes by as a month and you don't even notice it. And here I am, 16 years later, still with Payless."

A few years later, Bernard oversaw the opening of Payless in Jamaica and was subsequently given responsibility for the DR and Jamaica. She then became a manager of retail operations and in 2012 opened Payless in Barbados.

Seeing an opportunity for further expansion, Bernard said, "We were only present in TT, DR, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. So we came up with the idea of opening the eastern Caribbean islands – Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts, St Lucia and St Vincent. In St Lucia, we have two stores. So six islands, seven stores, within the Eastern Caribbean.

"We're also in Barbados with five stores, in Jamaica with 15 stores, in the DR we now have 29 stores, in Puerto Rico we have 32 now and of course, with this super store in Trincity, we now have 22 stores in TT."

In August 2014, Bernard was promoted to director of retail operations, Caribbean. Reflecting on how much had changed over the 12 years prior, she told Business Day, "when I joined the company in 2002, there were 19 directors of retail operations, all men, and most were over 50.

"Today, however we have a strong female presence in leadership, including at the VP level, which I believe is the ideal thing, given our customer base and the talent pool we had in the female arena."

Bernard said women make up about 85 per cent of Payless' customer base – in addition to shopping for themselves, women with children and/or husbands also tend to shop for them – "so women are our number one customer."

Although Payless has a "huge presence" in the Caribbean, the company is looking to open in territories where it does not currently have any stores.

Asked which island was top of her list, Bernard smiled, then said she wouldn't want to give away the secret yet, before hinting that the next location was "close-by" to TT.

Business Day asked if it was Guyana, to which Bernard replied, "We are not in Guyana, yet."

Turning to events in Payless' North American operations, Business Day shared with Bernard that upon learning that a super store would be opening in Trinidad, several people asked how this was possible, given its US arm had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year.

"Put simply, our Latin American and Caribbean business has been extremely solid, strong and successful. We were not impacted by what went on in our business in North America – it was exclusive to North America," she said.

"Our North American (entities) are coming back stronger and better than ever but definitely, Latin America and the Caribbean has maintained a solid performance throughout the course of the 17 years that we have been operating in this market. TT, specifically, has been one of our most successful markets throughout the entire chain."